23 Jul
2024
23 Jul
'24
11:35 p.m.
On 2024-07-23 22:11, Thomas DeBellis wrote:
Probably I am now the worst person in the world to ask
as to what is
intuitive on Tops-20, what with being saturated with it and all.
Are you referring to the programming part or the user part?
I am referring to the convoluted notation to tell which protocol to use.
debellis(a)mim.#decnet
vs.
debellis(a)mim.#internet
If the latter, then what is so bad about _@finger
debellis@mim_? It's
the same thing you'd use for email... I don't recall that our users
complained about finger. They did, however, find plenty of other things
to point out.
That's the thing. Using that notation also for mail? Ugh! There was a
convention used everywhere else, which is basically:
debellis(a)mim.stupi.net (or shorter, if domain match, or if you have a
hosts file, or whatever)
vs.
mim::debellis
This is what everything else have been using all this time, and it makes
it much easier, unambiguous, and I would say very clear. It also carries
over to protocols like DAP, where instead of usernames you have filename
paths, which can include a host, and is then separated by the double
colon. I would assume TOPS-20 do understand that notation for files at
least?
If you want complicated, unintuitive and bad to use,
may I suggest
trying to create a directory on ITS or deleting a file on MVS with JCL?
Oh, I'm sure if you want to, there are any number of examples of
horrible and unintuitive examples all over. It's just not something I
thought TOPS-20 would get to. Generally, I have always considered
TOPS-20 to be rather the opposite. So this is a bit of a surprise (to me).
Johnny
------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 7/21/24 6:42 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt(a)softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
I must say - in this case TOPS-20 seems rather
complicated,
unintuitive and bad to use.
The user and hostname fields... Hmm. I'll clean that up on the RSX
side. :-)
Johnny
On 2024-07-21 04:02, Thomas DeBellis wrote:
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To unsubscribe send an email to hecnet-leave(a)lists.dfupdate.se I finally remembered the syntax to force
transport. After you
aredone with whatever the host name is, you append a ".#" suffix
followed by the name of the transport protocol. Let's suppose there
is a nickname defined in the SYSTEM:HOSTS.TXT file for MIM:: as follows:
HOST : 192.108.202.74 : MIM : PDP11 : RSX :
TCP/TELNET,TCP/FTP,TCP/SMTP,TCP/FINGER :
So we can force a finger of user DEBELLIS to use a particular
transport, as below. In the output, the DCN: device is the DECnet
active component (or client) and the TCP: device is for IP, where
client or service are specified in the GTJFN% string.
*DECNET*
FINGER>debellis(a)mim.#decnet
[Fork FINGER opening DCN:MIM-117 for reading, writing]
DEBELLIS
Default directory: US00:[DEBELLIS] CLI: DCL SID: TDB
Last seen May 21 2024 23:56:54 on RT0: from VENTI2::
Logged on 8 times.
No plan.
*INTERNET*
FINGER>debellis(a)mim.#internet
[Fork FINGER opening
TCP:.30033145112-79;PERSIST:30;CONNECTION:ACTIVE for reading, writing]
DEBELLIS
Default directory: US00:[DEBELLIS] CLI: DCL SID: TDB
Last seen May 21 2024 23:56:54 on RT0: from VENTI2::
Logged on 8 times.
No plan.
I did notice that the user and host name data appear to be written in
fixed length fields, resulting in trailing spaces that were not
trimmed. This is unlike the other lines in the output. Not thatit
really matters; who is running 300 baud these days except for museums?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 7/20/24 7:27 PM, Thomas DeBellis wrote:
All too true, except that it isn't stupid, at least not in that
particular regard.
As per my previous email, Finger uses HSTNAM to determine network
transport, which has a default order, on my systems picking DECnet
first. I'm pretty sure there was a way to force the transport
protocol, I just don't remember what the magic syntax is.
A number of system programs use HSTNAM to implement their protocols
over multiple transports. These include the mail system, the FTP
client, finger and something else (I think).
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On 6/17/24 9:22 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>
> Ugh. That notions seems risky... How do you know you should be
> using DECnet and not IP if you say @mim?
>
> After all, @mim is a perfectly valid IP address as well.
>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> On 2024-06-18 00:47, Thomas DeBellis wrote:
>>
>> Updating the Tops-20 Finger client was simple enough, a table
>> entry for DECnet and a small routine to build the JFN string, viz:
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